


In Another World, Another Cave, Another Time

by queerlyobscure (softestpunk)



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 22:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softestpunk/pseuds/queerlyobscure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/">avengerkink</a>, for <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/5758.html?thread=7963262#t7963262">this prompt</a> - Watched Ironman again and thought, what if Soldier (dunno if he's captain or something else) Steve Rogers was there when Tony was kidnapped in Afghanistan. Maybe was in the car with the 'party-people', and gets taken along with Tony, or something.</p><p>Just a sketch of that idea and a bit of a play with what changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another World, Another Cave, Another Time

The first thing Tony is aware of when he opens his eyes is the sound of moaning. It takes a few moments longer than it should for him to realise that it’s him making the noise, but once he’s worked it out, he can stop.   
  
“I wasn’t sure you’d wake up.” A voice floated around his head from somewhere in the dark. American, male. Was that a New York accent? Sounded like it. Well, that was... probably good.  
  
“Well, here I am.” Tony moved to sit up, but abandoned the idea when it felt like he’d been stabbed in half a dozen places in his chest.  
  
“You shouldn’t move. I heard talk of bringing in a doctor, but I’m not sure how long you’ll have to wait.”  
  
“Okay.” Tony nodded, and then decided that wasn’t a great idea, either. “Where are we?”  
  
“Dunno. Could be anywhere. Feels like the desert, though.”  
  
Tony grunted, eyesight just beginning to adjust to the low light. He could make out a figure sitting beside him. Big guy, broad shoulders. And then, it clicked. “You were in the Jeep.”  
  
“Yes, sir.” The soldier nodded. “They captured us both. The others...”  
  
_Died_ , Tony heard loud and clear despite the silence. He took a moment to let that sink in, and then let his head fall to the side to better face the other man. “What was your name, again?”  
  
“Captain Rogers, sir.”  
  
“First name?”  
  
A pause. “Steve.”  
  
“Nice to meet you, Steve.” Tony smiled wryly. That got a laugh out of the captain, which was much better than he’d been hoping for.   
  
“Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Stark.”  
  
“Tony,” he corrected instantly.  
  
“Tony,” Steve repeated. “You in a lot of pain?”  
  
“Yeah.” Tony winced. He felt like he’d been run over and set on fire and then fallen into a box of broken glass. But now was probably not the time to mention it. “You?”  
  
“Mostly fine. Scratches. One big cut, but it’s stopped bleeding. You got the worst of it.”  
  
Somehow, the apologetic note in Steve’s voice made that seem okay. Tony could feel his eyes drooping, but knew enough about basic first aid and head injuries not to give in to sleep. “Where you from?”  
  
“Brooklyn.” Well, at least he hadn’t been completely off about the accent. “Born and raised.”  
  
“Miss it?”  
  
“Every day. Little more than usual right now.”  
  
Tony snorted softly. “Yeah. I’d take most places over wherever we are right now. Not that there’s anything wrong with Brooklyn.”  
  
“Kind of you to say, sir.”  
  
“Knock off the ‘sir’, okay? When we get out of here we’re gonna be friends for life. I’ll be bouncing your kids on my knee and getting them to call me Uncle Tony. You got kids?”  
  
“Haven’t really had the opportunity. One day, maybe.”  
  
“Good, ‘cause you’ve gotta have them for both of us now.” Tony took a deep breath and hissed it out again, vision going white momentarily with the pain. “Okay, I need you to be honest about how bad I’m hurt.”  
  
“You took a lot of shrapnel to the chest. You’re breathing okay so I guess it didn’t hit a lung, and you’re still alive so I’m guessing your heart’s fine, but there’s a whole lot of blood. They said-” Steve paused, and suddenly there was noise everywhere. “Doctor’s here.”   
  
Tony barely had time to turn his head before feeling a sharp pain in his neck and the irresistible drag of chemical sleep.  
  


***

  
The next time Tony wakes up, there’s a lot more light around.   
  
And if he thought his chest hurt before, well, before had nothing on now.   
  
“Morning,” Steve said from somewhere that wasn’t directly above Tony.   
  
“Is it?”   
  
“No idea.” The shrug was audible in his voice.   
  
“Well, at least you didn’t say good morning.” Tony gasped with the unexpected pain of taking a breath. “Oh wow. That doctor needs to re-take his Hippocratic oath.”   
  
“He can’t.”   
  
“Why- oh.” Tony went silent. People kept dying around him and he wasn’t completely sure how to handle it. At least Steve was still around. “Sorry.”   
  
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.” Steve’s face appeared in front of him. He was surprisingly easy to look at, all earnest eyes and strong jaw. Classic all-American boy. No wonder he’d been kept alive; he’d look great on a hostage tape.   
  
Tony could have kicked himself for the morbidity of that thought, but at least he wasn’t imagining Steve’s gory execution, yet.   
  
“If you’re asked, I want you to make it very clear that you’re under Stark Industries protection. I’ll personally pay whatever they want.” He wasn’t about to lose Steve. Steve kept him alive.   
  
“Umm. Thanks.” Steve blushed all the way down his neck. “That’s... thanks.”    
  
“I don’t want you to die.” Tony looked at him seriously.    
  
“Feeling’s mutual.” Steve reached out and brushed Tony’s hair back with shaking fingers. “It’d be awful quiet without you here.”   
  
“Was that... are you making jokes about the dying guy?” Tony blinked incredulously. He wasn’t exactly insulted, but he felt like he should be.   
  
“You’re not dying. Not anymore, at least. Probably not gonna be happy about the state of your chest, though.”   
  
“Is it worse than bleeding?”   
  
“No.” Steve shook his head. “But it’s going to scar badly.”   
  
“They killed him because of me, didn’t they? No offense, but you’re not exactly a recognisable public figure.”   
  
“I think they would have killed him anyway.”   
For once, Tony shut off anything that would have told him if Steve was lying. He was happy enough knowing that for whatever reason, the other man didn’t want him any more hurt. “Yeah. Maybe.”   
  
“Listen, Mr.- Tony. You should know that they’re not talking about a ransom.”   
  
Tony blinked. Well, of course Steve spoke the native language - he’d been deployed here for a while, had to be - but what else would they want?   
  
“I don’t follow.”   
  
“They’re waiting until you recover enough to build them a weapon.”   
  
“They... what?” Tony took a moment to take that in, reeling from the irony. “After they blew me up with my own bomb? Really?”   
  
“Sounds like it. I mean, from the bits I understand, anyway.”   
  
“Great.” Tony sighed. Even now, though, a plan was forming in his mind. There was always a way out. He just hoped Steve would be able to keep cool long enough for him to put it in action.   
  
“You should sleep,” Steve advised after a pause. “Better chance of stalling.”   
  
“I’m not completely sure I could handle waking up to this again.” Tony breathed out slowly. “Help me sit up?”   
  
Steve picked him up as though he weighed no more than a child and helped him lean against the wall. The cave wall, Tony noted, judging by the rock sticking into his back. His chest pulled in every direction, making it impossible to be even a little comfortable, but he was happier sitting up.   
  
“We’re gonna be okay, Steve,” he promised, knowing that at least if he was proven a liar, he wouldn’t be around to find out about it.   
  
“Sure,” Steve replied. “We’ve got Tony Stark on our side.”   
  
Tony wasn’t sure why Steve’s honesty made him feel so sick.   
  


***

  
The amount of time his captors were willing to let him recover was much too short, and soon Tony was being put to work, an ever-watchful man with a gun hovering in the corner. Strangely enough, the threat of imminent death wasn’t the most motivating or head-clearing of circumstances, but he’d had worse. Well. That might have been the painkillers talking, come to think, and he was being pumped completely full of those.  
  
The one thing he could get his brain to figure out on something other than autopilot was to ask Steve for as much help as possible, even if it was just to hold his plans down while he worked. If it looked like Steve was useful, he had a much better chance of staying alive, right?  
  
More than anything, he wanted to tell Steve that it was okay, that he was working on their way out, that they were going to win this one. He’d learned all about the shy kid the other man had been right up into his twenties until he suddenly grew into his body and got to follow in his dad’s footsteps in the hopes he could make him proud.  
  
That stung a little, but it made Tony even more determined to keep him alive and safe. There was something about Steve Rogers that just felt right, and he wasn’t about to give that up.  
  
“You’re not building a weapon, are you?” Steve whispered in a rare moment when they’d been left alone. “At least, not the kind they want you to.”  
  
He hadn’t intended to share the plan. If Steve didn’t know about it, he couldn’t give it away. Not that he thought he’d give it away, just that... well, trust issues or something. Couldn’t hurt to be cautious, right? But Steve was apparently smarter than that.  
  
“No, I’m not. Told you, I’m getting us out of here.”  
  
“Okay.” Steve nodded. “I trust you.”  
  
Tony swallowed. “Thanks.”  _Then you’re making a mistake._ “I’ll get you home.”  _I hope_ .  
  
That was the motivation Tony needed, though. He knew Steve was on board with his plan, and now this was about saving them both. Steve trusted him. Trusted him. He wasn’t about to break that trust for anything, including the limits of physics. Fuck physics, he was Tony Stark.  
  
“So what’s the plan, then?” Steve asked days - maybe weeks, it was hard to tell - later. “You didn’t tell me before.”  
  
“How do you feel about flying, Steve?”  
  
Steve paled. “I prefer it to dying in a cave in the desert.”  
  
“The way we’re doing it, you might not.” Tony shrugged. “But it’s worth a shot.”  
  
“Yeah. I’d like to go home.”  
  
“Me too.”  _Why?_   
  
On the day Tony knows he’s as ready as they’ll ever be, he slows down and makes his final checks cautiously. There’s only really one thing left to do, and he wants to do it before he does anything else.  
  
“Steve?” He shakes the other man lightly to wake him, without moving away from his comforting warmth at all. Steve blinks a few times like a fairytale princess waking up.  
  
“Hmm?”   
  
Tony swallows and takes Steve’s hand. “Will you come home with me? When we get out of here, I mean.”  
  
Steve doesn’t often smile here, but Tony thinks it’s a testament to his good nature that even under hostage conditions, he manages a smile once every now and then. And he’s smiling now.  
  
“Yeah. I’ll come home with you.”  
  
Tony nods quickly to stop himself tearing up. Everything was about to change, he could see that coming the way you saw the false dawn before the sunrise. But he’d have Steve with him when it did.

 


End file.
